Various forms of combined weed and safety guards for outboard motors have been heretofore provided. Some of these guards have been specifically design for use in conjunction with increasingly popular electric trolling motors and are utilized in shoal waters in which weeds, sticks, rocks, and other underwater obstructions are many times present in abundance.
Examples of various forms of weed and safety guards for marine propeller assemblies are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,135,162, 2,136,628, 2,244,217, 3,025,825, 3,035,538 and 3,802,377, the latter being closest in construction and purpose to the improved weed and safety guard of the instant invention.
Many electric trolling motor units are operated by a remote control toe-heel foot pedal to control steerage of the electric motor and quick steerage may be accomplished through the utilization of the toe-heel foot pedal control. However, when operating an electric trolling motor in shoal waters in which weeds are present, the propeller of the trolling motor may often become entangled with weeds. Further, the propeller of the trolling motor will often strike other underwater obstacles resulting in damage to the propeller. The entanglement of weeds about the propeller of an electric trolling unit not only reduces the efficiency of the trolling motor as a propulsion force, but also increases the resistance of the water on the trolling motor during steering operations and quick and precise control through the utilization of the conventional toe-heel foot pedal control is greatly hindered.
While various forms of previously known weed and safety guards for use on outboard motors are capable of protecting the associated propeller against striking underwater objects, such previously known guards are not well suited, for various reasons, for use on electric trolling motors. With some forms of guards it is difficult and expensive to produce guards of different sizes for mounting on different size outboard motor lower units, some guards are constructed so rigid as to overly protect the propeller of a trolling motor and be capable of transmitting substantially all of the shock of impact with an underwater object to the mounting structure therefor to the associated trolling motor and the yieldable guard disclosed in our prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,802,377 is constructed in a manner so as to interfere with deck storage of the trolling motor while the latter is not in use.